Darian Tucker
United States
Winter Park
Florida
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There was particularly unanimous revulsion at the inclusion of the Travel Deck in our first game with Merlin's Company amongst my group, so much so that people refused to play unless it were removed. Unfortunately, removing it seems like it would break the Merlin portion of the expansion entirely, which doesn't leave much except the new Black and White cards. Unfortunately, I feel like the new Black cards far outweigh any benefit the new White cards give the players, so I don't think just using those and leaving everything else in the box would work.
How would you play with this expansion if you were going to throw out the travel deck? If necessary, we might just remove it entirely and go back to the base game. It's not that we mind the difficulty, but the Travel deck just seems so niggling that you really don't want to use it if you can avoid it.
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Wade Nelson
United States
Saint Louis Park
Minnesota
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Well, I really like the travel deck. Travelling should be risky. Foreign lands, dragons, wars on two fronts... You don't just stroll over there, deal with it, and stroll back to Camelot.
BUT, since the travel deck is what gets Merlin to travel with you:
1) Count the number of Merlin travels with you cards in the deck.
2) Figure out the ratio of Merlin travels to total cards.
3) Use a die. If there's one Merlin card per 8 travel cards, use an 8-sided die.
4) Assign Merlin a number, i.e. if you roll an 8 Merlin travels with you.
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Darian Tucker
United States
Winter Park
Florida
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I thought about that, but it presents two problems. First, there are no sixteen-sided dies. Secondly, you would have to remove a number each time you got a failure or success. It's not that big of a deal, but it could lead to a lot of rerolls if you kept getting a number you "couldn't get" several times in a row. Alternatively, we could just discount all the other cards in the Travel deck that do bad things, but that feels ultimately more cheesy.
Is it possible to just use the new Black and White cards? I'm wondering if any of them refer to components specifically in the expansion or not.
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Wade Nelson
United States
Saint Louis Park
Minnesota
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The new black & white cards should be fine, but they make the game more difficult. Some of the new knights have powers that help offset the difficulty, and having Merlin with you can be a help too.
On the odds of drawing a card, for example:
1 special card per 15 normal cards = 1/16 chance. Over time you should draw one special card per 16 draws. If there were 64 cards, you would have 4 special our of the 64. Once 16 are removed, 15 normal and one special, you have 3 special out of 48. So over time the odds work out to always be 1/16 chance of a special card. You're right in that rolling a die is isn't the same thing as drawing cards. You could roll five 16's in a row, which wouldn't make sense if there were only four special cards as in the above example. But over time the odds should be the same.
An easier method might be to use the travel deck, but ignore any negative effects. Keep doing the Merlin travels actions. Then if you find the game a bit too easy, just remove the travel deck AND Merlin. If you find a black or a white card that references the Merlin character and travel deck, just discard it and draw again (I don't remember if any cards do make these references).
Just remember that the expansion was play-tested with all the components in place, so you might need to tailor the game to make it play more or less the way that works best for you group. The idea is to have fun, after all 
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Darian Tucker
United States
Winter Park
Florida
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Actually, I think the first thing I might try is removing the expansion and playing with the Squire rules instead. That way it makes the game harder, which everyone wants, but not by a silly movement mechanic, which everyone hated.
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Josh Edwards
United States
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
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At the very least, you should be able to use the expansion to add new options about knights (though I think that one or two of them might relate to the travel cards), and have the potential of two traitors.
For how to get Merlin to move, you could just roll a D20, and if it hits a 20, he comes with you. Then your odds are slightly lower, but they don't have to change based on which card was drawn. You could also adjust this die if you think he is moving too often or too infrequently. But, keep in mind, its not always a good thing when Merlin moves - sometimes he's more valuable to you where he is, so him moving is sometimes bad (though not detrimental like the other travel cards).
I think if you add Merlin without any of the black cards, you may be skewing the game to the easier side, so you'll want to be careful with that.
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Pieter
Netherlands
Maastricht
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Note that Merlin's Company tends to make the game a lot harder. That is partly because the game was deemed too easy in the original version (too easy, that is, without a traitor or with five or more players).
So, if you remove the travel deck AND Merlin, but leave the cards in, you definitely have a harder game on your hands, but that is what the expansion is supposed to do. Frankly, Merlin himself is nice, but not great. You can certainly do without him if you miss out on the annoyance of the travel deck.
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